


The Leverage Job

by Greenninjagal



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, Leverage
Genre: A lovely little Leverage Au, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Andrew hits people for a living, Based on the first episode of Leverage, Because that show is amazing even ten years later, Explosions, Guns, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, It was supposed to just be a prompt....then it wasn't, M/M, Neil wears a dress, One Shot, Stealing, Talk of murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 20:58:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17311754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenninjagal/pseuds/Greenninjagal
Summary: “Were we--?”“Processed?” Andrew guessed, waving his hand in the air. “We sure were! Dan, Dan, make a plan! Or my next move will be to kill everyone in the convoluted death hole.”“You’re kidding,” Allison hissed, “They’ve already got us for blowing up a warehouse, arson, probably something else equally terrible—but! But! I’m not going down for murder. Not when I don’t get to be the one to carry it out!”Dan waved a hand towards Andrew, a motion Andrew assumed she thought was closing him down, wiping the idea of driving up elbow into someone’s gut away. “Don’t—Don’t do that.”“Do you have a better plan?”It was a jab at her. She wasn’t supposed to glance towards the vent and narrow her eyes.She wasn’t supposed to say yes.***In which, Andrew thinks that killing his crew might be easier than dealing with them, but he wants a bit of revenge first.





	The Leverage Job

Andrew hated guns.

Actually, Andrew hated a lot more than just guns. He hated crossbows, too, Baseball bats, Bowling balls, any manner projectile throwing stars that just made his day job hard. Andrew did not like it when his job was hard.

Hard work made it not worth the money he got paid in the end.

The whole job was mind-numbingly boring as it was. People moved like big blurs --face after face—it didn’t matter who was in front of him, because they all ended up in the same place: on the ground behind them in their own blood. He lived in a fog, a haze of people and problems and jobs that others called “missions” and he called chores. Occasionally he was pleasantly surprised when from the fog a face emerged, fighting with tooth and nails and claws in which he didn’t have to hold back.

“Your safety’s still on, dumbass.”

Allison pulled a snarl on her perfectly red lips. “Like I’m going to fall for that, Monster.”

Andrew didn’t twist, didn’t move, but he didn’t have to. Allison Reynolds was another face in the crowd, another face that he was itching to put in the concrete flooring, with all the violence of WWA wrestling tournament. He wanted to spread the fire in his gut to his fingers, as he clutched them around her throat and cut off the air to her stupid pea sized princess brain.

The sound of footsteps behind them did not make him turn. His smile was dangerous, lethal, and it only quirked wider at the sound.

“He’s right, actually,” The voice of Dan Wilds spoke up.

Allison’s lips twitched as Dan step up beside Andrew—no beside was too strong of a word. Dan wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t whimsical, and she wasn’t the type to miscalculate. She had tried chasing him once, because she had been paid a lot of money to and in the end money hadn’t been enough to fix the corrupted heart of the Insurance Company. She had chased him and almost caught him, and she had several nasty scars from the attempt.

Dan learned from her mistakes, and therefore when she walked up to the two of them and saw Allison Reynolds holding a gun right to Andrew’s chest, she stepped up with a wide birth to Andrew, closer to Allison with her weapon.

Then in a flicker of a second, Dan’s words hit Allison’s brain and circulated through her tiny, slow brain, like a mouse trying to blindly find it’s way out of a maze. In that second she made the fatal mistake that Andrew swore he’d never make again—because trusting people was not something Andrew did lightly.

(Andrew, like Dan, was not the type to miscalculate—he had only done it once. It would not happen again. He had taken care of that problem.)

Allison’s eyes flickered down to the very much off safety of her very illegal Ballester-Molina that she got who knows where. Dan’s hand snapped out and caught her wrist, ripped the weapon from her grip, and burst back away before Allison could figure out her mistake.

“A gun, really?” Dan snapped irritably as if she had expected anything else from the hacker. Her duster swept the warehouse floor, giving her more of a presence than her usual confidence provided.

“What,” Allison hissed, “Are you doing here?”

“Same as you probably, Same as him.” Dan jerked her head towards where Andrew stood, grinning. “Did you send those plans?”

“Did I send those—Of fucking course I did!” Allison jabbed a finger in Dan’s face. “What do you take me for?”

“You really don’t want to know,” Andrew told her.

She flipped him a manicured middle finger, “I sent those plans! I want to get paid!”

“Unless you found a bigger buyer?” Andrew tutted, “Your lack of a brain is showing through, Scarecrow.”

Allison barred her fangs and took a threatening step forward at him, but Dan came between them. The raging fire in Andrew’s chest hissed in disappointment.

“Oh Dan, Dan, the impossible man!” He sang, “Why don’t you let her try? I’ll fix all our problems right now!”

“Killing her doesn’t solve anything.”

This time Andrew allowed his grin to slip into a sneer, his body tensed, twitching in reason to the new voice. He should have known. If the Princess was here, and the Sob Story of a white knight, than of course the rouge would come slipping in with the shadows.

Allison didn’t hide her flinch. Only Dan didn’t appear surprised, only caught off guard with the wheels in her head cranking out numbers and letters and conclusions to jump to.

“Renee,” Dan said, kindly, because only an idiot wouldn’t speak kindly to the girl who could get in and out of a locked vault buried in cement thirty feet underground, covered motion sensors, lasers, and heat sensors without tripping even a suspicion.

Renee strolled towards them, wearing a flowered dress and a sun hat, with her pastel hair hidden in it. Her flats made no sound as she ghosted towards the rest of them with a passive open expression.

“Dan,” She said, “Allison.” She turned her eyes on him, and her smile peaked through, “Aaron.”

Andrew wanted to smear the fondness off her face.

“We’re all here because Seth said we weren’t getting paid right?” She said, “If Allison said she sent the files she must have sent them. She wouldn’t have come here otherwise. Killing her won’t get us paid.”

Allison brushed a strand of her blond hair back, letting one of her rings dazzle in the sunlight that struggled through the obscured dirtied windows. “Thank you, finally someone with some common fucking sense.”

Andrew rolled his eyes.

Dan looked between all of them, “That doesn’t make any sense.” She muttered, “Why would he not have received them?” Her eyes narrowed at nothing, “No, why would he have lied?”

“Lied?” Renee repeated.

“Lied?” Allision repeated slightly slower, because of her pea sized brain.

“So he didn’t have to pay us?” Andrew said dismissively.

“No,” Dan said. She stepped back, brushing a hand to her chin, thinking, faster, smarter. Andrew thought about how easy it would be to rip out her spleen while she was so busy “thinking”.

“No,” Dan repeated, “He’d still have to pay us. He knows we would go to the police with evidence, or we’d go to him. He knows that none of you would “ask” for payment. Why would he call us here, to meet at a warehouse on the edge of the city?”

“So he wouldn’t get caught giving us the money?” Renee offered, even though it was wrong.

Dan looked up at them, “Why is he late?”

Andrew glanced across the empty building. Dust was floating in the air lazily, the machinery hadn’t been touched in years, there were puddles in some spots where water damage had become too much.

“It was supposed to be a one-time job.” Andrew said, “We were supposed to get the airplane plans back, send them to Gordon, get paid, and never see each other again.”

“Right,” Dan echoed, “In fact, the only way to get any of us in the same room again would be to tell us we aren’t getting…”

“Oh fuck.” Allison said. She bolted towards the closest door, and Dan was only a second behind her.

“What?” Renee asked.

Andrew grabbed her arm and yanked her after the other girls, “Go!”

The thief stumbled. Andrew yanked her up, his own heart beating drastically in his throat. He was not dying here, not dying in a warehouse in South Carolina, not without getting paid, not with these dumbasses. He had sent a million and more people to their graves, and he still had people to go.

A promise to keep.

A dumbass with a pretty smile to pay back.

The garage door was closed, because of course it was. Dan was a step ahead of Allison, which Andrew noted was only because the hacker was wearing heels, and the former insurance agent slammed her fist into the door opener and waved Allison underneath the slowly rising door. Andrew practically threw Renee after her.

He didn’t wait for Dan, his head whipped up checking the rooftops, checking the street, checking the cars and the shadows and the open sunlight. He shut out the screeching anger in his mind, the breathless of his lungs, and aching of his shoulder where that dime-a-dozen security guard had gotten one good hit while he was protecting Allison’s stupid ass while on the job yesterday.

Andrew listened for the sounds of the job: the whooshing the air, the snapping of Allison’s heels, of Renee’s gasping surprised breath, the clicking of the garage door still opening. He was waiting for the popping sound of a sniper taking them out one by one, of an ambush around the corner—

Dan let out a yell, and then everything behind him exploded.

He spit out a curse as he was thrown forward, and everything went black.

***

Andrew had only ever been to a hospital three times.

The first time was his birth.

The second time was when he first “snapped”. (Because that was what they called it— “snapped” like a rubber band, when all the pain they had dealt him had come back and ruined them the way they had ruined him. Because he had finally listened monster inside him, finally gave into the drug that road his veins ~~and he had gotten addicted from the tiny little taste.~~ )

The third time was when his brother had looked him in the eyes and told him to go die.

After that, Andrew had sworn off hospitals. If he got cut, he stitched himself up, if he got shot…he walked it off. He could take the pain that came with unleashing the thing inside him. He could take the consequences. He had proven it time and time again.

So when he woke up handcuffed to a chair with Dan Wilds completely unconscious next to him, against his will in a hospital again, it took all of his self-control not to end her life and the lives of the seven armed policemen hovering outside his door.

He turned over his body, crushing the swell of unease that swallowed him as he remembered exactly what happened: Seth Gordon had hired them to steal Airplane plans that another company had already stolen from him, and then the bastard had tried to kill them all instead of paying up.

Oh, how Andrew was going to make him regret messing that up. Seth Gordon wasn’t going to live to see Sunday, much less the board meeting in which he was going to present those plans.

Andrew snarled at his right hand, where the black smudges over his fingertips. Of fucking course, this day couldn’t get any better: the idiots outside had fingerprinted them.

“Damnit!” Andrew hissed punching his free fist into the wall.

“Aaron?” Renee’s soft voice came through the same wall. Andrew glanced up at the vent.

“What,” He gritted out.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” She actually sounded relieved. Andrew wondered how many drugs she was on and hated the number he came up with. “How is Dan?”

“Dead.”

“Oh dear—”

Andrew wished she was dead. As if sensing that they were talking about her, the dark-skinned woman gasped to life, drenched in a sweat, and yanking at the handcuff viciously.

“Oh hello Dan,” Renee greeted her.

“Who--?” She looked around wildly, “Aaron--? What?”

“Good Morning,” Andrew said with a false happiness. His skin crawled at the name, the name here, the name here in a hospital that he was being called. Memories threatened to reach out of his brain and drag him to a place he wasn’t going to come back from.

“Where are we?” Dan groaned weakly, which was not a thing Andrew guessed happened often.

“Hospital, County.” Allison’s voice perked up.

“Were we--?”

“Processed?” Andrew guessed, waving his hand in the air. “We sure were! Dan, Dan, make a plan! Or my next move will be to kill everyone in the convoluted death hole.”

“You’re kidding,” Allison hissed, “They’ve already got us for blowing up a warehouse, arson, probably something else equally terrible—but! But! I’m not going down for murder. Not when I don’t get to be the one to carry it out!”

Dan waved a hand towards Andrew, a motion Andrew assumed she thought was closing him down, wiping the idea of driving up elbow into someone’s gut away. “Don’t—Don’t do that.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

It was a jab at her. She wasn’t supposed to glance towards the vent and narrow her eyes.

She wasn’t supposed to say yes.

“Listen, if we do this, we are going to have to do this together.” Dan said, “We do it my way.” She looked at Andrew, “No killing, no hitting.”

“Oh of course! Whatever you say, Wilds!” Andrew snarled at her.

“Aaron I’m serious.” Dan said, “We don’t have time for you to mess this up. We have to be fast, and we have to trust each other.”

“I don’t trust them, Dan,” Renee said.

“Do you trust me?”

There was a pregnant pause in which no one spoke. Too long, too late. Andrew ripped at the handcuff hard enough to dig into his skin and ground him in the timeline.

“Of course,” Allison’s voice said for Renee. “You’re an honest person Dan.”

Dan Wilds, former insurance agent and possibly the smartest mastermind to walk the streets, offered a quirk of a smile that suggested no such thing. She brushed back her frizzed black hair and folded her legs.

“Okay,” She said, “Renee get me some phones.”

Another pause, then a sigh, then, “Oh dear this is going to suck.”

Andrew had heard enough people vomiting to know that Renee the little angel that she was, had just shoved her hand into her uvula and resurrected whatever perfect angels ate for lunch.

Alarms started ringing almost immediately.

“What are you going to do? Ask them to let us out?” Andrew asked unconvinced.

“No.” Dan said cryptically, “You are.”

***

Andrew did not “ask” anyone anything. In fact, according to Dan’s plan, he pretended to be an FBI agent and demanded that the state police officers who had arrested them, unarrest –fucking—Reynolds because she “was a deep undercover cop”. With some hinky hacker magic she managed to fake her own FBI badge, talk up a bunch of clueless law enforcers, and lead them out into a squad car. Renee twisted off her hand cuffs almost before she was in the car and had the tracking device on the car disabled before Dan was pushed into the seat next to her.

Andrew would never admit it, but Dan’s plans had a way of just…working.

It was stupid and he shouldn’t have been irritated that no one stopped them. It had been easy, so easy. He didn’t have to punch anyone, no one drew their weapon on him, he didn’t dodge death by a millimeter.

The only time the plan when remotely not right was when Allison was forcing him into the car and slammed his head into the fucking roof of the car. She acted like it was an accident. He was going to act like breaking her kneecaps was an accident until Renee’s pleading eyes caught his attention reflection of the open car window.

Andrew was not a fan of hard work.

He sunk back into his haze of boring nothingness while the rest of them argued where to go. He pictured himself digging several kitchen knives into Seth Gordons face, but he’d first have to get through all the security the man now had in place, get past the FBI and state police that were surely after them by now.

It was hard work ahead, but Andrew was made of just enough spite that he considered it manageable.

“You can’t go after him alone,” Renee said, as if reading his thoughts. With the three of them squeezed into the back seat of the squad car, she had every right to be pressed up against him. But instead she was almost in Dan’s lap to give him space. Based on the look in her face, it wasn’t because she was afraid of him.

“I don’t play well with others.”

Allison scoffed, from the steering wheel, “Neither to the rest of us, Monster.”

Renee hummed, “I want to take him down.”

“I want to bury him.”

Dan tapped her chin, “I might be able to create a plan.”

“What’s in it for you?” Allison asked. She pulled up in some abandoned parking lot behind a building that looked as abandoned at the warehouse they had almost just died in.

Dan froze for a second. Not long, but noticeable. “Seth Gordon lied to my face. He didn’t want us to steal the plans for his plane _back_. He just wanted us to steal the plans to a plane. That’s enough to get me angry.” She threw open the car door and climbed out.

Andrew wasn’t fooled. He climbs out the other side staring her down, “Is it enough to get you to forget your morals, Wilds?”

She ignored him, looking up at the building, “This yours Reynolds?”

“Duh.”

“Perfect,” The woman said. She looked at Andrew with a blazing heat in her eyes that rivaled the bloodlust in his gut. “The backstabbing wasn’t enough to get me to turn.”

“Oh?”

A dangerous little smile touched on her lips, a polite little devil settling in the skin of the herald hero for X-many years too long.

“Seth brought up my son,” She said, “And that’s why I’m going to obliterate him. And I’m going to use his own company to do it.”

“Anyone else just get a chill?” Allison asked, “Or was it just me? Just me. Okay.”

Renee peaked out at the building and hummed quietly, “We’ll need someone else. Seth knows our faces, knows our tricks. Whatever your plan is he’ll see it from a mile away.”

Dan snapped her fingers, “We’ll need a grifter.”

“A what?” Allison asked.

“A grifter,” Renee explained, “Is someone who’s acting skills are impeccable. They use their skills to get close to a mark and steal it, ransom it, kill it—you get the idea.”

“I don’t know any grifters,” Dan said, “None that owe me favors.”

“The last grifter I was with had an unfortunate accident,” Renee admitted, “with an elevator. Tight spaces, they really are just hanging coffins, you know.”

Andrew scoffed at the sentiment. He turned away from the building and glanced back the way they came. Back towards the town. Back towards the cheap little apartment he had for this job and stashed his regular supplies, travel back, and his accessories ~~and those stupid fucking cats~~.

Andrew didn’t want anything. He thought of his phone—which was long since lost to the Pacific Ocean weeks ago in a misunderstanding on a yacht where someone had been rather reluctant to just fall overboard like they were supposed to do when Andrew threw them over the railing.

He laughed. It wasn’t pleasant.

“Alright, Wilds,” He said, a dash of madness in his cackle. “I’ll get you a grifter. You make sure this plan of yours pays out in the millions.”

“You know a grifter?” Allison asked, “And you didn’t kill them? Like every other person you meet?”

Andrew laughed again, kicking the squad car just to scuff it. “Oh, believe me. I tried.”

“You failed?” Dan said. “Are they going to be willing to work with us at all?”

“I couldn’t kill the dumbass, so I did the next best thing.” Andrew walked around the car to the driver’s seat, and slid in. He dug his hands into the steering wheel and imagined flooring the engine and running over the three of them where they stood in the parking lot.

“What did you do?” Renee asked. She almost sounded like she cared.

“I married him.”

***

“Someone agreed to marry the Monster.” Allison repeated. “And they weren’t threatened or bribed or mentally ill or anything?”

“That’s a bit mean, Ally,” Renee said gently.

“It’s _Aaron_ _Minyard_ ,” She justified, “The guy has a _reputation_. There isn’t a job he’s ever declined, from anywhere. Children, terrorists, pet shop owners— _no one_ is safe from him. Who would willingly get into a relationship with someone who kills for a living?”

Andrew was sure his face ticked at the personal profile Reynolds relayed to the group in a whisper that was just loud enough for him to hear, but he wasn’t facing them so he was sure they wouldn’t even notice. He had declined jobs before—everyone had—but he had kindly cleaned up the mess that came with unhappy business partners. No one could force him to kill or hurt anyone he didn’t want to touch.

He stared down the alley, waiting patiently. They weren’t on a time table yet, Dan was muttering to herself against the door of the stolen greed ford they were using now, looking over newspaper, and making notes in a Dollar Tree notebook.

Renee was sitting in the open backseat with her feet dangling into the street and Allison was on the hood admiring her nail polish while she waited to see what kind of monster was needed to marry someone like Andrew.

“Any time soon, Minyard?” Dan asked, slightly annoyed.

“He works on his own schedule,” Andrew replied.

“Is he going to have a problem working with mine?” She muttered.

“He’s a junkie, Wilds,” Andrew said, “he gets a thrill out of being someone else. He’ll love your little scam. He loves the British accents.”

“And you _married_ him?” Allison said again.

Andrew wondered if it was too late to find a gun and shoot what little brains were in her head out.

Before he could pick the best excuse to feed Dan about where he was going (which was definitely not the ammo store two blocks away), the door towards the end of the alley they were cornering opened and two forms tumbled out: One obviously drunk man, and one slightly buzzed woman.

Nice suit, graying hair on the man. Long blonde, purple lips, blue eyes, half his age on the woman. Cumbersome stumbling tumbled them awkwardly across the alley, as if neither of them could follow a straight line much less walk one. Andrew could hear the high pitched giggling as they tried to find their footing, the laughter and an obtuse suggestion that they find a cab to get back to the man’s place.

Music followed them out and the door shut with a sharp _clang._

Andrew started towards them.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Allison said, “Your grifter—husband—whatever-- is a drunken grandpa—”

Andrew didn’t wait for her to finish. He pressed forward with his right leg and turned his hand into a fist around a metal knuckle brace he’d been dying to try out. The man, already drunk, and struggling to stand went down heavy.

The girl let out a yelp, a scream.

“HELP! SOMEONE HELP—oh fuck it’s you.” The girl turned towards them, and all at once the high pitch to her tone dropped. Her shoulders slumped forward, head to the side, and the full weight of the man she was carrying slid right off her. One hand picked at the sequins of her dress, the other reach up to her hair, tugging at the blonde locks until they came right off, revealing the auburn curls hidden underneath. All of a sudden she didn’t appear in the least bit buzzed, punch drunk, or even remotely intoxicated.

With the change in stance, the change in hair and a decent light from a street lamp, it was also plain to see that the girl in the short shiny, dress, was not a girl at all.

Andrew didn’t turn around but his smirk quirked slightly, just enough for the other man to see.

“What are you doing here,” The man with the purple lipstick asked.

“Working.” Andrew replied. “What are you doing?”

The man glanced down at the seemingly lifeless body between them, “working?”

“You hate that dress.”

“Yes but Mr. Whittier here, loves blondes, sequins, and Johnnie Walker Blue.” The man smiled a little, “I happen to love his wallet, his watch, and the Monet hanging on his wall at home.”

“I hate you.”

“You married me.”

“To get rid of a problem.”

“You didn’t get rid of me. I think I just became your problem. Rather than anyone else’s.”

“I don’t get thanked enough for it.”

“My condolences. Will a kiss make it better?”

“Not while you’re wearing that awful lipstick.”

“You bought me this.”

Behind him, he heard the sound of Allison choking on the air.

The man raised an eyebrow, “Company? Did you learn how to make friends? Should I be worried?”

“Hardly. They think that someone trying to blow us up together makes us teammates.”

“Ah, yes. What a misconception.” The man smirked. “They keep that up and you might just marry them.”

Mr. Whittier groaned. The man kicked him quiet.

“I wish I had never met you.” Andrew said, with _feeling_.

 “In that case.” The man offered Andrew his hand, “My name is Neil Josten. You wanna get married?”

Andrew looked at Neil, wondering if kissing him would still feel like someone was stabbing his heart with a dagger. “120%”

“It’s going to take forever to get to 200% at this rate.” Neil said, “Maybe I should just go jump of the Elfie tower again.”

That got Dan’s attention, “ _Again?”_

Andrew gave her the dirtiest look he could manage over his shoulder, “Do you mind, Wilds?”

Neil blinked, “Wilds? Like Dan Wilds? The insurance agent? Holy shit.” He glanced between Andrew and Dan for a minute, “What happened to you son, the insurance company denying his treatment after everything you’ve done—man, that was fucked up.”

Dan face stilled.

Andrew glanced at Neil again, but he wasn’t— _he wasn’t_ – drinking in the look of his pale skin in the moonlight, the soft glow of his icy blue eyes and the curl of his natural hair against his forehead. Neil had that stupid look on his face, the earnest and open one that toed the line between a mask and the real person that was hiding underneath. Andrew wondered when he started being able to see between the layers of the con Neil was running: was it before the French Fiasco, or after they got those stupid cats?

“Seth Gordon,” Andrew said before Dan was pushed over the edge with grief or whatever human emotion she was sporting. “You know him?”

Neil thought for a second, “Likes bottle blondes with commanding presences and high IQ’s. He likes proving he’s smarter than everyone else. CEO. Airplanes. That’s pretty much all.”

“Perfect,” Andrew said deadpan, “Get in the car. You’re going to grift him.”

“There are easier ways to tell me you want a divorce.”

“If I wanted a divorce, I would have shot you so I could get the life insurance.”

“You don’t like hard work.” Neil said, “Or guns.”

Allison leaned towards the oddly quiet Renee, “I thought Aaron did most of his killing via guns.”

Neil leaned close to Andrew, close enough for Andrew to smell the sweet cherry perfume he was wearing and hate him for it. “Are you pretending to be Aaron again?”

_“Pretending?”_ Dan echoed. “You’re not Aaron?”

Ah, she finally got a hint. Allison balked at the news, Renee titled her head, face unreadable. But Dan—Dan looked like she was about to walk two blocks to that ammo store and get a gun to kill him herself. Andrew felt a brush of fire in his gut, imagined breaking her hand before she had time to pull the trigger, and twisting her head violent to the left before she could even scream what a bad idea that was.

Aaron was all for distance, sniping with his guns, using outdated crossbows, causing brain damage from the long end of a baseball bat, and cracking skulls with strangely convenient bowling balls. After a trip to Japan with a nice payout, he had even gotten a little attached to a throwing star collection he liberated from some careless dragon warriors who wouldn’t be able to throw them anymore after Aaron had cut off their fingers.

There were three things that the two of them couldn’t just agree on. One of them was the best way to kill a man.

 “Andrew,” He told them shortly, “His twin brother.”

Renee pushed herself forward, standing up and drawing the attention to herself in a way that only she could. “Oh, I thought so.” She said as if he had corrected the time rather than revealed that they had been fed bad information. “Aaron had a girlfriend in Maine last I heard.”

“Aaron is out of the game,” Neil said, a whisper of a conspiracy on his lips. Ever the trouble maker, ever the riot starter. It was amazing he lived this long.

“What?”

“I framed him for a robbery and scored him six years, after which he will go back to that little whore and raise that brat daughter of his.” Andrew said, “Like a good father.”

Aaron thought that the job came before his stupid little family. Andrew thought he would have learned that growing up without a father made the worst kind of children ~~and those children grew up to be terrible adults with terrible day jobs.~~

Andrew glared at the three girls daring them to say anything. Neil snickered because he knew that when the twins disagreed on something, Andrew always ended up winning: he killed people up close and person, he put his brother in jail, he married the stupidest man he had ever met. Even if Neil told them anything about his personal life, about his love to cook and read, and how he bickered with his cats when he was home, and how he liked to stare at the stupid paintings Neil collected for the apartment and talk about Impressionism, he knew that none of the girls would believe it.

Aaron Minyard, retrieval specialist, hitter, murderer. He had a _reputation_ , because Aaron had never been one person, because Andrew was the reason Aaron was wanted in Libya, Ethiopia, Turkey, and Iraq. Because if one of these idiots so much as suggested they talk about personal life, Andrew was going to show them why he was all of those things.

Andrew wished he had a cigarette. “Now if you don’t mind. I have cats to feed and bills to pay. Dan do you have your plan?”

Dan gave Neil a once over. “How good are you?”

“Better than you’ve seen, Wilds.” Neil smiled like it was a challenge, “I’ve been grifting since I could talk.”

“Junkie.” Andrew tossed.

Renee hummed, “What are you thinking Dan?”

“Nigerians,” Dan tapped her chin and then she smiled. “Yes, Nigerians will do very nicely.”


End file.
